SOURCE: Molan, Peter D. “Sinbad the Sailor: A Commentary on the Ethics of Violence.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 98, no. 3 (July-September 1978): 237-47.

In the following essay, Molan comments on the ironic disparity between Sinbad's actions versus his professed moral stance, characterizing the tale as a parable that is meant to instruct King Shahriyar about ideas of self-deception and justice.

Sinbad the Sailor has become, for his modern audience, a Romantic hero. Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, the Palestinian poet and critic, says of him:

So human in wishes, in reactions, in dreams, and yet, because of his endurance and invention no death or destruction can get at him. His vision is all men's dream: his ship is wrecked, his fellow-travelers drown, death and horror overtake the world, but Sindbad battles on and survives. The original land-dream was so powerful that the sea has to be conquered, and so have...